Fission energy neutrons can act as a sensitive and specific signature for a material that emits such neutrons, due at least partially to low natural backgrounds of fission energy neutrons, penetrating nature of fission energy neutrons, and scarcity of materials that benignly emit fission energy neutrons. Detecting fission energy neutrons may be desirable in several applications, such as, but not limited to, detecting contraband in materials, scanning cargo containers at borders, and verifying conformance with arms control treaties.
Conventional fission energy neutron detection systems tend to be somewhat bulky, and detect fission energy neutrons relatively inefficiently. For instance, an exemplary conventional fission energy neutron detection system utilizes at least two separate scintillator volumes, and which must be positioned relatively precisely with respect to one another. To detect a fission energy neutron utilizing this conventional system, a first interaction between the neutron and scintillator material in one of the scintillator volumes must first be detected, and a second interaction between the neutron and scintillator material in the other of the scintillator volumes must also be detected. Therefore, a relatively low percentage of neutrons that interaction in at least one of the scintillator volumes are detected, as probabilities of detecting two interactions of neutrons in separate scintillator volumes are relatively low.